The Devil's Reunion
by HumanyWumany
Summary: Twenty years after being rescued from the island and catapulted to instant yet short-lived fame, the remaining men are invited to appear in a month-long documentary series, filmed on the very island their plane crashed on and recreating exactly the same conditions they lived in during their time there. Will those that accept create a civilisation or another living Hell?
1. Chapter 1

Jack woke up screaming. Cold sweat ran in rivulets down the contours of his body; still half dreaming he wiped the sleeve of his pyjamas over his face and looked at it, expecting to see a naked sunburnt arm, orange and grey with clay and face paint. In reality all he saw was a striped flannel sleeve, grey in the half light. He pressed both hands against the flimsy plaster walls to try to get a grip on his reality. He breathed. Deep breaths. Slowly. In and out. Jack clenched his fists to stop them shaking and lay down between the icy sheets. He did not sleep but stared wide eyed at the ceiling, making vines and creepers out of the shadows.

Ralph heard the scream through the wall. He didn't go to Jack; he knew he would not be wanted. Needed, yes, but not wanted. He crouched with his knees drawn up to his chin on the thin mattress, hearing Jack's shuddering breaths and finding himself copying them. I'm here, He wanted to say. I'm here. At the same time he wanted to say you deserve every second of pain you ever experience because you are responsible for everything that ever went wrong. I'm here. He heard the springs creak in the room next door- Jack was lying back down. Ralph sighed and continued his sleep as if uninterrupted.

Sam attempted to negotiate his way the three blocks from the pub to his council bungalow. It was difficult going because he was drunk and the street was poorly lit by the weak orange streetlights. He found himself in this position every night at closing time. He groped his way along a brick wall, staggering a little when it ended at a garden gate. He continued search the black air in front of his with his arms; finding a concrete fence post and hugging it. Sam reached out to the slats of the fence and brushed them with his fingertips. Immediately he recoiled. His drink fugged mind and felt the wood and assumed it to be the bark of a tree trunk. He drank to forget but that touch had made him remember.

Eric watched Angela sleep. She was lying with her head resting on his warm downy chest. He was lucky to have her and their children Frank and Kimberly but he wouldn't have them for long if things carried on the way they were going. He was a Stockbroker. A failed stockbroker. He had been fired from his job in a quite prestigious company a few months earlier, due to his frequent bouts of depression which he had to take off as paid medical leave. Since then he had spent every day sitting on a park bench in a suit with a briefcase full of newspaper cuttings. He hadn't told his family.

Roger stared at the night's sky through the barred window of the room he had slept in for twenty years. He could hardly remember why he was there, in a special institution, why the guards called him horrible names and hit him for no reason. He barely knew why he had to go on trips to the town with an armed escort to wave back the crowds of people yelling abuse in his face or to reassure those who didn't want him in their shops. The only clear thought in Roger's mind was that he hated them. He hated the whole bloody lot of them.

Percival added the last splatter of ochre paint to his latest canvas. He painted best at night and always been talented at it, earning a degree in art from Cambridge and selling quite a few canvasses. All his canvasses were the variations of the same picture, sand flying through the air towards the onlooker, sand blurred by tears.


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty years earlier the remnants of a crashed evacuation party had been rescued from an island by a naval cruiser. The whole of England had presumed them to be dead and were rejoicing at the fact the little boys were still alive. All but two of the boys were returned to their families. The youngest, Percival, had been adopted by an older couple who were thrilled at his willingness to learn and draw. His parents had been killed in an air aid during his time on the island. Percival was perfect in almost every way apart from the fact that he'd had to be reminded of his name by one of the older boys, but he was soon happily integrated into family life and that small disturbing aspect was glossed over by time. Another, Roger, it transpired had killed another of the boys in cold blood so he had been taken to an institution where he would be safe and punished accordingly. Another boy, Simon, had never returned but the other boys never spoke of him to the authorities and it was assumed he'd died in the plane crash.

England had been hooked on their story, the good news coming out of the Second World War. The pictures released of the boys on their return shocked the people who read the newspapers; they were just so dirty and savage looking. Still, nothing a good wash and a haircut couldn't change. All the boys were interviewed by journalists and police officers and child psychologists and psychoanalysts and psychiatrists.

They were constantly on the news until the end of the war when nobody needed cheering up by a group of rescued boys who weren't all that happy anyway. After one year all therapy was stopped and the boys were left alone. Rodger still sometimes received faeces in the post but apart from inflicting pain on a child murderer all interest was withdrawn from the case and slowly the story of the boys who had lived through a real coral island experience faded from people's minds.


	3. Chapter 3

Now the letters came.

Ralph exited his room through the pockmarked door to find Jack already sitting at the table of their kitchen/diner/lounge room - the open plan space which took up the majority of their south London apartment. Jack was staring into space before a cold mug of untouched coffee, his red hair lying straggly and greasy about his thin face, dressing gown coming undone and revealing curls of coarse ginger chest hair.

"Good morning!" Said Ralph with false cheeriness, straightening his already straight tie and inserting a slice of bread into the toaster.

Jack said nothing.

Ralph sat opposite his flat-mate and snapped his fingers in front of those cold blue eyes.

Jack blinked and looked at Ralph as if seeing him for the first time.

"I said good morning."

"Is it?" said Jack bitterly, noticing his coffee and gulping it down in one.

"Yes! I am going to work to have an interview for a possible promotion-"

"-what kind of promotions are there when you work for a temp agency?"

"You… answer the phone at a different desk. With a window next to it." Ralph couldn't help feeling he was trying to justify something of almost no importance. He changed the subject,

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

Ralph grabbed his toast from the toaster and spread some jam on it. He was wondering about coaxing Jack into having a slice when there was a soft flump of letters falling onto their doormat.

Sam awoke with his face pressed into the maroon carpet and the feeling that his head was being squeezed in a metal vice. He groaned and sat up groggily, knocking over a few empty beer cans and a mug from which a dribble of red wine escaped. Rays of midday sunlight were reaching into the room through the nylon curtains, illuminating patches of the two foot high sea of cans, bottles, clothes, books and glasses that covered what had once been a living room floor. Sam waded through the rubbish to reach the door to the kitchen. He popped two paracetamol tablets and sat on the lino floor, not entirely sure what to do with himself. This was a nice house he lived in, paid for completely by Eric who had a good job, Eric who had a good wife, Eric who had good children, Eric who always found Sam and took him home and cleaned him up when he was too drunk to stand up. Eric who led a perfect life, Eric the good, Eric the preferred, Eric the better. The snap of the letterbox closing startled Sam out of his reverie.

Eric had nipped back to the house after he was sure Angela would be at her part time job in the laundrettes and Frank and Kimberly would be at school. He would never normally have done this but the weather was so miserable; the dark clouds were resolutely knitted and the rain was falling in sheets. Eric had neglected to bring an umbrella for his monotonous day in the park. As he ran, suited, with his head down, along the broad and leafy road he found himself holding onto hunks of his hair with both hands and trying to wring them dry. He hated the rain. It had rained that terrible night on the island and Eric could never be in a downpour without thinking of pigs and beasts and fire and masks and sticks sharpened at both ends. He met the postman at the end of his drive and pretended he was on a mid-morning break.

Roger was pulled roughly out of bed and instructed to get dressed. He did so, deliberately slowly, knowing this would irritate his guards no end. It pleased him to see the anger grow on their faces as it had blossomed within him and been nurtured by their treatment of him. His loathing was for all mankind because he thought they were all the same. Rodger took an especially long time to button his regulation grey shirt and was only half way through when a boot landed in the small of his permanently bruised back. Roger stumbled but did not fall, continuing with his buttons at him own pace. Taunts and curses were hurled at him but he hurled them right back. He only fell down when eventually two guards pinned his arms to his sides while a third smacked him round the face with a stick. Roger smiled sweetly, spitting blood and teeth onto the floor as he raised himself to his feet. The fireball of malice inside him was all consuming and made any pain he felt irrelevant. The guards took him to be read his letter.

"Percival, darling? Breakfast's ready if you're not busy."

"Thanks mum, I'm coming!" Percival tore from his room, along the landing and down the stairs. He knew that, at twenty six, he was too old to still be living with his parents. Well, adopted parents, but that didn't matter. They spoiled him. He didn't earn enough from painting to live and besides, they were both well into their sixties now and needed looking after. That was what Percival told himself anyway.

"I made your favourite because I know your art hasn't been selling so well at the moment."

"Thank you." Percival slid into his seat between his parents at the kitchen table and piled his plate with hot crumpets and butter. He father was reading a newspaper over his horn-rimmed glasses and his mother was simultaneously eating and sorting out the post which had recently arrived.

"Oh, look Percival, here's a letter for you."

**_Dear Sir,_**

**_You are cordially invited to take part in an exclusive documentary series to mark the twentieth anniversary of your rescue from the real-life coral island. You, and all the other remaining men who also resided there after the same plane crash, will stay on the island for one month, during which you will be filmed by cameras placed upon the island at various positions. There will be a lump sum of £15,000 for any person who chooses to take part, issued at the end of the trip. If you wish to attend the filming and receive the money please write to the enclosed address to receive your plane tickets and a more detailed explanation of what is expected from you._**

**_ Kind Regards,_**

**_ Neil Hamilton,_**

**_ Director of the British Broadcasting Company._**


	4. Chapter 4

Ralph had gone into the hallway and opened the letter before Jack had got up from the table. He read and reread three times to insure it was real. Then he leaned against the wall and clenched the letter in shaking hands. All he saw in front of his closed eyelids was a beautiful creamy pink shell shattered into fragments of a rock. He gasped when the hands which had destroyed the conch seized his shoulders and shook him, forcing him to open his eyes.

"What is it Ralph?" Jack asked earnestly, eyes alive and gleaming, searching for a clue in the lines of Ralph's expression.

Ralph handed Jack the letter. He couldn't see what else there was to do. Jack had as much right to see it as anyone else. Ralph couldn't stop him, as much as he wanted to.

Jack read the letter and found himself somehow sitting on the floor at Ralph's feet, holding onto a fistful of his trousers and trying to breathe evenly. £15,000 each would solve all their problems and if Ralph wanted to go then Jack would have to go too, just to be there. He was curious to see whether the island would be as he remembered; Castle Rock, the Pig Trail, the fire on the mountain. If he did return to the island, all Jack's nightmares would come true.

It was fifteen minutes before Sam could be bothered to get off his lino and see to the post. He knew it would only be overdrawn bills and loans which he'd have to get Eric to see to. Eric, who had a wife, Eric who had children, Eric who had a job, Eric who had friends, Eric the preferred twin, the better twin, the cleverer twin. Eric who was _loved. _Sam eased himselfoff the floor and waded, irritated with himself and his brother through his rubbish filled living room and to the door mat. He read the letter from Neil Hamilton, Director of the British Broadcasting Company and strode purposefully to the cupboard under his sink from whence he procured a bottle of whiskey which he downed in two long, satisfying gulps. He shuddered slightly and then ran through the living room to the hall to phone Eric, only stumbling once.

Eric deposited the post at the bottom of the stairs without looking at it and thrust his torso in the dark and sinister world of his cupboard under the stairs. He threw aside shoes and coats and cleaning utensils and probed all available space with his hands, searching for his umbrella. Before he could find it, the phone rang and he reversed in the longue, grabbing the phone from its table and holding it to his ear before he remembered he wasn't meant to be at home.

"Hello…" He said tentatively.

"Eric?" Sam sounded drunk and upset and like he wanted something, which was how he spent most of his time and the only reason he ever phoned Eric.

"Sam! Hi! What's wrong?"

"Have you read your letter?"

"No, I have the post here but I haven't opened any of it yet. What letter?"

"We all got a letter about the island. There's lots of money and we have to go back. We're going back."

For the first time in his life, Eric hung up on his brother.

There was a thick Perspex screen between Rodger and the guard who read out his letter in case Rodger felt inclined to throttle the reader. He didn't. He didn't really feel anything, no anger that was normally present. Empty. There was a vague feeling of guilt and unease at the back of his mind but he didn't know why he felt it. All Rodger could remember about the island was that there was a shell and a chief with a painted face and that Rodger himself had had a painted face also and that he had killed a big, fat, pink pig with a rock and splayed it's brains all over the ground. Nobody had wanted to eat that pig and Rodger hadn't understood why. Rodger was going back to the island; his guard were hoping he might succumb to some tropical disease whilst there so they wouldn't have to bother with him anymore. He didn't have a choice.

Once he'd read the letter Percival left the table without saying a word and trod the familiar path to his bedroom without thinking about it. He hoisted a blank canvas onto his easel, throwing his latest sand picture onto the floor before it was really dry. Percival painted for more than hour what would look from a distance like a series of random, abstract swirls of colour. When looked at more closely however, it could be seen that the swirls were made up of tiny words repeated hundreds of times; yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. This is how he would decide.


	5. Chapter 5

As it was, all the men wrote to the enclosed address and were sent to rendez vous at an airfield with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to be taken by aeroplane to the island, where the documentary cameras were already set up.

Jack was licking his lips in nervous anticipation, clenching and unclenching his fists, tapping his foot against the floor in the cab next to Ralph. He was only doing this for the money, he kept telling himself, only the money, it's all about the money, there is nothing but the money. You don't want power you want money. Ralph will be with you, he will lead, you will take your money and then you will go home.

Ralph wished Jack would stop moving about so much. He felt like a yelling at him to stop with the foot tapping thing but he held his tongue and concentrated on formulating an image on what the island had been. Hard as he tried all he could see was a fat boy called Piggy holding a beautiful shell called a conch and a painted boy called Rodger destroying them both with one stone.

Only the clothes on his back. Sam wasn't sure he could cope without a few suitcases full of alcohol as well. It was more than ten years since he'd gone a day without a drink but he'd have to stiff upper lip and get on with it in ship shape and Bristol fashion without any unnecessary withdrawal symptoms. He'd have Eric and Eric would make sure everything was fine. He watched the world steak past the drizzly car window and found that was strangely excited about seeing some of the other boys again. It would be just like a school reunion.

Eric had been sure to put a small picture of Angela and the kids in his jeans pocket. He desperately needed the money from this trip to pay of his debts, which is what he would as soon as he returned. There'd be money left over for a long-weekend to the Isle of Wight too, which is what he'd promised his family. As he drummed impatient fingers against his knee all his thoughts for of others and none for himself. He worried that Eric might not be able to manage a whole month away from alcohol and brawls and he worried that he wouldn't be strong enough to look after Eric if that was the case. He had warned his wife not to let the children watch the program when it aired because he was sure they would find it upsetting to a group of grown men revert to children with places in a false and fragile society which was of course what was going to happen.

Roger had given up trying to view the scenery they passed through the back of the armoured van in which he was enclosed. He doubted it would be very interesting anyway. It was twenty years since he'd been more than within a one mile radius of the institution where he lived and he couldn't be bothered to remember what the world looked like. It was be full of the stinking, despicable mess of humanity just as much as the institution was. Rodger wondered if the rest of the boys would agree with him about the stupid, fickle and violent nature of all mankind. Part of him hoped they would but most of him hoped they wouldn't; then Roger would do them in.

Percival wiped baby tears from his eyes as he waved his mother and father away. He'd been away from home for longer than a month when he was at Cambridge but this seemed different somehow, like he was going back in time to a place where they never existed, where he had a different address and phone number which he knew, where he had different parents whom he loved, where his current parents had never existed to him. The thought made him uneasy.


	6. Chapter 6

Suddenly they were all together again. Six men on a runway, the remains of more boys who had been thrown onto the same island off the same plane by the same violent and perverse twist of nature twenty years previously. This is what they looked like.

A tall, thin man, bleached of colour from his forehead downwards, wearing a black suit that was obviously too big for him, worrying at the greasy curls of his vivid red hair with his long white fingers. He was bobbing up and down distractedly on the balls of his feet and staring at the scuffed concrete of the airstrip, avoiding eye contact with the rest of the circle.

A slightly shorter man stood next to the first. This man had blond hair, thinning at the front and an open face with a high forehead. His wide blue eyes were dulled and there was a touch of weariness about the mouth but he was smiling weakly at the rest of the crowd. He was wearing a suit identical to that of the first man, apart from his fitted snugly over his elegantly barrelled chest.

There was a gap of about two metres until the next man could be seen. There was stubble on his head and chin and the dark bags beneath his eyes took up the majority of his haggard face. He was wearing a dark green t-shirt with a stain on over his beer belly, holey blue jeans and loafers. He was holding onto the sleeve of the man next to him with trembling hands.

The next man whose sleeve was being gripped by the one before was identical in features but his face was much cleaner and more filled out. He had thick dark hair pulled away from his forehead with gel. There were leather patches on the elbows of the jacket of his tweed suit. He looked very neat and strong and sane apart from the occasional viscous twitch of his right eye.

Everyone was keeping as far away as possible from the penultimate man. He was thick set, short and wide with brutish shoulders and his coarse hair stuck around his head in no particular style. He was wearing a filthy grey uniform which gave the false impression of authority. There was dried brown blood all over his face; he was staring intently at the rest of the men through the puffy swelling of a recent black eye and gnawing fiercely at a scab on one his knuckles. Although his face looked more like a lump of raw meat than anything else, one got the impression he was leering.

The last man still looked like a little boy to the rest of them. He was wearing a stiff brown suit which hung somehow gracefully over his willowy frame. His face looked naturally fearful, his blue eyes blinking rapidly above his long nose; the only colour in his pale face was a faint blush of pink on his prominent cheekbones. One of his elegant hands was playing with a loose thread on the side of his trousers. He tried to look friendlily around at the others but succeeded in making them pick him off as weak.


	7. Chapter 7

A grey haired man in a cheap suit broke the awkward silence with a loud and cheery "Hello!"

He was slightly unnerved when all the men's heads spun round in his direction at the same time, as if they were a pack of animals.

"Welcome. Welcome to the recreation of all the adventures you had on the island!" He spoke with the air of a children's entertainer, as if he were giving them all a special treat, "There are many secret cameras already placed all over the island. You will be recorded all the time and the clips from the day will be shown on BBC1 every evening. One of you will be ask to take a small motor boat to our transmition ship to be interviewed before you are sent back to the island every day. There will be no food or drink provided for you and you will receive your pay at the end of the month. Please, Gentlemen, step aboard this private jet and prepare to relive the happiness of your childhood!" The man looked disgruntled when he received no applause.

The plane journey was interesting because nobody spoke a word. The depression and helpless foreboding settled on all of them like a wet blanket which constricted their sight and breathing. When the plane landed the cheap suited grey haired man and two younger men leapt into a motor boat and rowed out to the big boat where they would be staying. The grey plane rumbled and rose from the ground in a cloud of sand and left the men standing alone.


	8. Chapter 8

It was two minutes before the first argument broke out. The men had been standing in a line in the sweltering heat staring out to sea without speaking. Roger spoke softly and maliciously, "Shall we have a vote…?" Sam ran as fast as he could at Roger and planted his fist in the centre of the already bloodied face. Roger was surprised and found himself staggering backwards before he thrust all his weight forwards instead and grounded Sam with his full weight. Roger straddled Sam's torso expertly, pinning his arms to the sand with his knees and pummelling every inch of Sam he could reach with gleeful fists. It can have only been about thirty seconds before Ralph and Eric dragged Roger away. Ralph laid Roger face down in the sand and sat on the small of his back. He motioned at Jack and Percival to join him and they did, sitting on Roger's legs until he had calmed down.

Eric skittered through the sand to Sam and sat him up, wiping the blood off his face with his tweed sleeve. Percival and Jack sat awkwardly looking at the sand and wondering why they'd come. After a while, Roger threw the other men off him and grinned unpleasantly at them through his mask of blood before rushing off into the jungle, bent low like a dog and smiling. He could not remember ever being so free before.

"He's peculiar, isn't he?" Said Percival, who couldn't remember exactly how the death of Piggy had come about.

Jack nodded stiffly and his feet in agreement.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time night had fallen the men had constructed shelter from branches as they had done twenty years before. Roger hadn't been seen since he'd torn off into the jungle that morning. Percival retreated into the jungle when everyone else began to settle down for the night. He didn't like the sand very much; he'd seen things crawling in it. Sam and Eric retreated into the shelter at about eleven o'clock while Jack and Ralph stared at the smouldering remains of a fire which had been constructed for them by Percival, who had his outdoor survival training badge from scouts and knew how to make such things as fires.

For once the silence between the two men was companionable, not stacked with tension or the need for words. There was no noise apart from the waves lapping the sand in the darkness and the hum of insects from the trees.

Jack spoke first, "It's weird, isn't it? Being back here, after- after everything."

"Yes." Said Ralph, "And the people-"

"Roger."

"Roger." Ralph agreed.

The silence settled once again and wrapped itself around Jack and Ralph, letting them know that they could say anything in its presence, that they would not be overheard and that it would not betray their secrets.

With a great effort, Jack spoke aloud what he had been thinking ever since the letter arrived, "I'm frightened. I'm scared that I'll go back to how I was-horrible, pigs and, and hunting-that boy-"

"Simon,"

Jack nodded through the velvet shroud of night. No words came to him. For a horrible moment he thought he might cry and then realised that he already was.

Ralph encircled Jack's knobbly hand with both of his own, enclosing the trembling fingers in a cave of warmth and sympathy. It was sympathy, Ralph realised, that he was feeling for Jack. Sympathy for a malicious murderer, sympathy for a ruthless dictator; but that wasn't what Jack was anymore, he was a child and he was sorry for what he'd done.

Jack finished crying as soon as he felt Ralph's touch, more out of shock than anything else. Was he being forgiven? The heat from Ralph's hands seemed to tell him that it was alright, that everything he had done was alright. This thought then made him cry more and he instinctively leaned all his weight onto Ralph's body and wept for, well, he didn't really know what for, only that he couldn't help it and the burning tears felt good on his cheeks and that the beating of Ralph's gentle heart, the warm bulk of Ralph's chest against his face felt right somehow.

Ralph held Jack to him and tried to make him feel better by stroking his hair and telling him that things would get better, trying to sound sure about something he had hardly any faith in. Jack took an age to stop sobbing but when he did he clung on around Ralph's neck and arranged his limbs until he was in a kneeling position in front of the other man. Their eyebeams met before their lips did. It wasn't clear who started the kiss but both of them felt that once it had started, there was no need for it to stop.

Hands on hair, tongues on teeth, bodies pressed damply together. Ralph moved his hand to the bottom of Jack's spine and was about to go further down when He felt Jack's tongue being removed hastily from his mouth and a hard push on his shoulders which sent him sprawling to the ground. Ralph attempted to hide his hard-on with some convenient foliage after seeing Jack lie on his stomach and stare with a very embarrassed look at something over Ralph's shoulder.

Ralph tensed as he felt the presence of people behind him and looked around to see Sam and Eric standing looming at his through the darkness. This was, in a way, useful because it caused his dick to retreat back into the folds of his trousers.

"Hello!" He said, trying to sound as if he and Jack had just been casually lying opposite each other, he staring at the sky and Jack at the sand.

"Erm, hello." Said Sam or Eric, Ralph didn't know which, the neat one.

"We were just-"Said Jack, reddening, "We were just, um-"

"It's okay," said the untidy twin, "We heard you crying."

"Yes!" Cried Ralph, triumphantly, "We were upset. It's difficult, isn't it? Being back on the island?"

"More difficult than we thought it would be." Jack added, earnestly, because it was difficult.

The twins nodded in spooky unison, "Yes," Said one whilst the other smiled reassuringly, "We were just checking you were okay."

"I'm okay." Jack said, "It's okay now."


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning Jack felt unable to speak to Ralph. Their moment of intimacy had felt good at the time, the blood rushing all around his body, his breath catching in his throat. That had been his first time; not that anything had really happened. He found himself absent mindedly wondering if Ralph had done it before. Anyway, all he could manage was a tight lipped smile at Ralph as they awkwardly went about their day. He was concerned that his trousers were too tight for any deeper looks; he could still feel Ralph's hands on his back and his in his hair. He realised that it had been years since anyone had shown any tenderness towards him and it made him feel happy and sad and really rather confused. He decided to not be the first to mention it.


End file.
